12+ hour, 24+ min ago  (980+ words) As birth rates fall and countries turn to immigration to address their labor shortages, a lot of countries around the world are struggling with crises of national identity. Japan is one of them. Over a decade ago, Japan began opening…...

1+ day, 13+ hour ago  (1138+ words) About three years ago, someone asked me why, with my physics undergrad background and a Ph D in economics, I had decided to become a professional blogger. I told him that blogging seemed like the highest-leverage thing I could do,…...

3+ day, 21+ hour ago  (828+ words) I don't know whether Trump's debacle in Iran will be a similar moment for his presidency. For one thing, unlike Bush, Trump's approval ratings were already very low before Iran: The details of the deal that Trump is trying to…...

5+ day, 10+ hour ago  (843+ words) What's important about Daiei is not how it failed, but why it didn't fail much sooner. Caballero, Hoshi, and Kashyap wrote a paper in 2008 arguing that "zombie" companies like Daiei held the Japanese economy back during the 1990s (and, in some…...

1+ week, 15+ hour ago  (695+ words) About a month ago, I weighed in on an interesting debate over American vs. European living standards. On the other side, you have American liberals like Paul Krugman and Brad De Long. They argue that Europe is not falling behind…...

1+ week, 2+ day ago  (338+ words) No. I am Hugh." " Hugh Beautiful design coupled with brilliant engineering. Technology anyone could use. Economic opportunity for the masses and for the elite. A way to have your ideas and opinions heard by millions of people thousands of miles…...

1+ week, 5+ day ago  (1397+ words) Howdy, folks! Today's roundup is mostly a bunch of follow-ups to posts I wrote before. It's very hard to decide when to post about a particular topic, and it often happens that some relevant news story or piece of data…...

2+ week, 2+ day ago  (1575+ words) For many years, I was a big proponent of the idea that increased market power was harming the U. S. economy in various ways. In the 2010s, in the economics world, circumstantial evidence began piling up that implicated increased industrial concentration as the…...

2+ week, 6+ day ago  (978+ words) I consider myself a pretty good and decent guy, overall. I don't commit crimes. I'm nice to the people I meet. I help out my friends. I take good care of my pet rabbit, and I donate lots of money…...

3+ week, 1+ day ago  (1162+ words) And yet this is the job now, so I should stop complaining and just do it. Because I do have a pretty clear picture of what kind of country I think America should be. I believe that in the 20th century,…...